


What Happens in Russia

by anythingbutplatonic



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 5x02, Bonding, Episode Related, F/M, Fluffy Angst, Friendship, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene Fic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Recruits, UST, episode reaction fic, havenrock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:44:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8289548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutplatonic/pseuds/anythingbutplatonic
Summary: Oliver clues Felicity in to a Bratva tradition as a way of consoling her after Ragman makes himself known.Episode reaction/missing scene fic for 5x02 "The Recruits".





	

“So....”

Felicity startled, hearing Oliver’s footsteps coming up the steps behind her to where she sat working at the bank of computers. Well, not working, really. 

More like trying to distract herself. 

From the man in rags, and what he had said. 

About the person responsible for Havenrock. 

“Gah, Oliver!” she gasped, switching off the monitor and swiveling around in her chair to face him, clutching at her chest. “Stop scaring me like that!”

He stood with his hands in his pockets, his shirt rumpled from the day and his suit jacket creased. He’d loosened his tie - she knew he hated wearing ties, how they made him feel claustrophobic - and pulled open the top buttons of his shirt, exposing a triangle of lightly tan skin. 

_Well, that was unfair._

She tore her eyes away. 

“You’re working late,” Oliver commented nonchalantly, nodding to the computers. 

“Oh,” she babbled, gripping the arms of the chair tightly where she’d clutched at them for balance in her fright, “oh, yeah, I mean, I guess I am.”

Oliver’s eyebrow rose. Then he frowned, scrutinizing her. She knew he was taking in her too-pale face, the flyway hair curling out from her ponytail, the mascara smudged above her eyes, the deer-caught-in-headlights expression frozen on her face at his unexpected interruption. 

“Felicity...is everything alright?”

There it was again. _Fe-li-ci-ty_. 

Suddenly, she sagged into her desk chair, her body feeling heavy and cumbersome and _drained_. She lolled her head against the back of the chair and whispered, her eyes closed, deliberately not looking at Oliver, “No.”

“Ragman?” 

Her heart beat faster at his question; a natural response to having him _know_ , instinctively, what was bothering her, without her having to explain. She’d told him earlier she was just tired; now she didn’t feel like keeping up the pretense. 

“Yes,” she replied, her voice impossibly small and weak-sounding to her own ears. Then she continued, “His name is Rory. He’s seventeen years old. I ran a check on him on the computers. He had a little brother, Joseph. He was five.”

Oliver’s hand landed on her shoulder, then. She almost flinched, the all-too-familiar feel of his palm warm and heavy on her skin making her stop and halt her breath for a moment. 

He hadn’t done that in a long time. Touch her like that. Not like... _that_ , but just... _friendly_. Open. Naturally, like he did it all the time. He _did_  do it all the time, back before - 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Oliver said, with a seriousness that she rarely heard from him except when he really, really meant what he was saying. “He’s...he’s young, and angry, and in pain, but....”

“But what?” she suddenly turned to face him. “But _what_ , Oliver? You heard him. He wants payback. He wants revenge! He hates the person responsible for Havenrock and he wants to avenge his city _by killing me_.”

“Okay,” Oliver conceded, removing his hand from Felicity’s shoulder. He folded his arms. “Okay.”

“Sorry”, Felicity mumbled, rubbing at her wet, tired eyes. “Didn’t mean to yell.”

She heard Oliver move away from where she sat hunched in her desk chair, his footsteps retreating to the opposite end of the workstation. She heard the sound of an item of clothing being removed and the _swish_  of it being thrown over the metal rail that ran around the station. Her head in her hands, she listened as a drawer opened and closed, and then she heard the distinct _clink-clink_  of glass.

Oliver came back, and she looked up at last. 

He’d taken off his jacket, leaving him only in his shirt and pants, the sleeves of the former he’d rolled up to his elbows. In one hand he held two small glass tumblers. In the other was a half-empty bottle of Russian vodka. 

“Bratva tradition,” he announced, depositing the glasses on the table in front of her. He twisted the cap off the bottle and poured a generous measure of vodka into both. “It’s a way of wishing good health, but John and I used to do this whenever we’d had a lousy night on the streets, or when things were tough and not going our way.” He pushed one of the glasses towards her with a small smile. “I thought it...that you might get some consolation from it.”

Russia again. He’d never opened up to her about Russia before, not really, and now he was doing it twice in the space of a few days. 

She didn’t know what to think of that, really, except that she really liked that he was telling her these things, instead of keeping them to himself all the time. 

“Trying to get me drunk, Queen?” She cocked her head to the side. But she took the glass anyway, swilling the clear liquid around in it. “This looks expensive.”

“It’s really not,” Oliver laughed. “The whiskey _is_ expensive, but that’s strictly for the gentlemen, sorry,” he winked. “It’s a guy thing.”

“No touching the boys’ whiskey, noted,” Felicity said. She peered at her glass. “So what do we do now? You don’t do some kind of weird Russian dance around it or anything, do you? Because I’ve had this chip in my spine for six months now but I’m not sure it can withstand any cossack dancing.”

“No, nothing like that,” Oliver said. “You pick up your glass, like this,” he picked up his, holding it aloft, “and repeat after me; _prochnost_.”

“ _Prochnost_ ,” Felicity said slowly, trying to copy the way Oliver said it. The syllables and sounds were a mystery to her, and she wasn’t convinced she did it right. Spanish, sure, and a little Hebrew, she was good at, but Russian? Not so much. 

Oliver nodded. “ _Prochnost_.It means _strength_.”

She liked that. _Strength_. It was very...affirming. Strong and powerful. Something she didn’t feel much like being at the moment, but maybe she could be. 

“And now we drink?” she questioned. 

“Now we drink,” Oliver confirmed, and downed his glass in one single gulp.

Felicity took a mouthful of her own drink, swallowing the strong, odorless liquid - and promptly choking on it, spraying it everywhere as she spat out the foul, fiery concoction. 

“Oh my God,” she coughed, her throat burning with the alcohol, “that tastes like paint stripper! How do you even _drink_  this?”

“You get used to it,” Oliver shrugged, amusement in his voice. “John wasn’t a fan either at first.”

“I can see why,” she gasped. “I think I’d prefer the whiskey!”

Oliver capped the bottle, resting against the edge of the work table. “Feel better?”

“Actually,” she said, putting her glass back on the counter with a grimace. “I kind of _do_. Weird, huh?”

“Told you it helps,” Oliver grinned. 

“Well, thank you for letting me into your boys’ club,” she said. “And for opening up to me, about Russia. I really appreciate it.”

“The pleasure’s mine, Felicity,” he replied softly, blue eyes sparkling like stars in the dim light of the bunker. 

 

She could still taste the vodka at the back of her throat and the warm feeling of Oliver’s kindness spreading through her chest hours later, when she finally climbed into bed and slept without even dreaming. 


End file.
